Rio 2016 – a look at the stages of progress this year

The Rio 2016 Games will take place in four venue zones: Barra, which will be home to the main Olympic Park, Deodoro, Copacabana and Maracanã. With the Games some 2 years away, 11 of the 29 permanent venues are operational and require no renovation work. Of the remaining locations, eight will be renovated, while 10 are being constructed. Rio 2016 will use eight temporary venues to host competitions.

At the Barra Olympic Park, Rio 2016 said work on the foundations of Olympic Halls 1, 2 and 3 has been completed and the Olympic Golf Course site is being irrigated in order to allow grass planting to begin. Depth studies have been completed at the rowing and canoe sprint venue, Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, while at Flamengo Park the design of the integrated route for the athletics, road cycling and paracycling courses has started.

In April this year, the Rio de Janeiro city government launched the tender process for the Deodoro Olympic Park venues. Two invitations to tender were released for the construction and renovation of the nine venues that will host 11 Olympic and four Paralympic sports disciplines, with work scheduled to start in the second half of this year.

Three existing venues – the National Shooting Centre, the National Equestrian Centre and the Modern Pentathlon Aquatic Centre – will be renovated, four new venues will leave an important sporting legacy for the city, and two temporary structures will also be created.

The Olympic BMX Centre and the Olympic Whitewater Stadium, both new permanent venues, will form the X-Park, along with the Olympic Mountain Bike Park, a temporary installation. The Olympic Hockey Centre and Deodoro Arena, which will host the fencing part of modern pentathlon, some basketball matches and wheelchair fencing, are the other two new venues, while the Rugby and Modern Pentathlon Arena, which will also host seven-a-side Paralympic football, is the other temporary venue.

The Deodoro cluster is divided into a north and south region. R$647.1 million will be invested in the northern part, while the southern region works are budgeted at R$157.1 million, with the funding coming from the Ministry of Sport.

The venues will be completed according to their own construction schedules, with all work scheduled to finish by the first half of 2016.

At the end of April Rio 2016 issued the statement below.

“The time has now passed when general discussions about the progress of preparations contribute to the journey towards the Games. It is time for us to focus on the work to be done and on engaging with society. The recent announcement of the budget for infrastructure and legacy projects, in addition to the launch of the tender process for the Deodoro Olympic Park venues, were crucial developments and unequivocal signs of progress. The work being undertaken in partnership with the three levels of government – federal, state and city – is delivering progress. The support of the International Olympic Committee is also crucial.

"We have a historic mission: to organise the first Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brazil and in South America. We are going to achieve this. In 2016, Rio will host excellent Games that will be delivered absolutely within the agreed timelines and budgets.”

The Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games have acted as a catalyst for the acceleration of 27 government projects in the areas of infrastructure, the environment and social improvement. The projects, which include the revitalisation of Rio de Janeiro's historic port area, the extension of the metro system and the creation of a light rail transit (LRT) service in the city centre, were presented in Rio today (16 April) by the federal, state and city governments.

The initiatives – which also include sanitation improvements, anti-flood measures and the construction of educational and sports facilities – were already planned by public authorities but have been brought forward by the decision to award Rio the right to host first the Olympic and Paralympic Games in South America.

Of the 27 projects, 24 have already had their budgets defined, with a total investment R$24.1 billion. The governments said that 43 per cent of this total is private investment (R$10.36 billion) and 57% is publicly funded (R$13.74 billion).

In February 2014, work started at the Olympic Park in Barra da Tijuca on the Rio Olympic Velodrome, which will host track cycling events at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in two years' time. The first phase of work includes preparing the construction site and laying the foundations. The venue is scheduled to be completed in the second half of 2015. There was also a call for interests to supply up to 200,000 temporary seats for the Games.

This followed the start to construction of the Olympic Halls and the Olympic Tennis Centre, which are also in the Olympic Park, and the Olympic Golf Course, which is nearby, still within the Barra zone.

In January 2014 there was a first release by the Olympic Delivery Authority of the Games matrix of responsibilities between the three levels of governments and their respective agencies. This is an ongoing work in progress and planned to have updates each 6 months. This has now become a focus of concern since the first iterations were fairly unrealistic and did not recognise the delays occurring nor the major increase in costs of various projects.

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